Powered by Branding and Beechams.
Friday, March 7th, 2008Woosabi BETA has been active for almost a week now and all is looking good. I just wish i could say the same for me. I’ve been battling my very own ‘bug’ with hot drinks and Beechams Flue Plus, and CRM has been re-defined to ‘Cold Runny nosed Man’.
So, the other day I received a call from a prospective new client who was referred to me by recommendation, whch is always the best lead. Between my coughs and wheezy sniffles, we discussed the callers new business venture. Having worked for many years at a senior level with a well known multinational the caller understands the value of branding and identity design, and wants the right brand developed for the start-up venture.
This got me thinking: How many start-ups really appreciate the value of a good brand?
I define branding as “influencing the customer perception and experience”.
For the purpose of this post lets focus on one of the first elements of design that any new business and brand strategy must face, its logo. The logo is the foundation of any identity program and dovetails into the majority of customer facing assets e.g. stationary, web, advertising, brochures and more. Many smaller businesses view the investment of professional logo design and branding as too high, placing the service out of reach, and often resorting to DIY with generic clip art or ‘pick a font and colour’ for their business cards and letterhead.
There is truly only one way to create a logo that is worthy of representing a great new venture. That’s working with a professional brander who has a client’s best interests in mind, as well as pride in their craft. It’s a myth that this simply mean ‘high expense’ it all depends on what you need, a fitting adage I think is “You only get what you pay for”.
So lets finish with some examples of brand in action:
Water is available from any tap, so why do we buy Evian? We trust the water is clean and so Water + ‘Evian brand’ = £1.50 pint.
A bag of ground coffee can cost as little as £2.00. The same coffee, plus the ‘Starbucks brand‘ costs three times as much.
You can buy a high spec mp3 player for under £100. The same spec + ‘Apple brand‘ = £250 iPod.
